I wanted to take the time and personally thank you for a great first week! Thank you for bringing the supplies on time and for supporting our program. The students enjoyed the activities we did last week, especially in the art area. Also, I am very happy to say that EVERYONE brought a toy for show and tell this past Friday!!! Thank you for your cooperation and support! The students really enjoyed sharing their personal toys with each other. This activity truly promoted the social skills we review in the classroom and even motivated students to initiate interactions with one another and get to know each other better. I will definitely look into having this activity again in the near future.

As you saw, I sent out their art work home last Friday. I will continue to send any artwork completed within the classroom on Fridays. Although at times you may not be able to make out exactly what they did, take the time to ask them about it and to praise their artistic and creative attempts!

Please continue bringing your children on time and picking them up on time as well. This allows for Mrs. Marbella and I to plan accordingly for the next incoming group or the next school day. Keep up the great work!

It is of exponential value to expose students to fine motor activities that will aid them to achieve developmentally appropriate fine motor skills. For children with disabilities, this can be challenging and it is necessary that activities of value and interest to them also be utilized.

I have linked this blog to an online binder I created that provides all information regarding fine motor skills for students in preschool. I have done this through livebinders.com; an excellent resource for sharing important information such as this. Dive into the binder, research, and explore. Leave comments of your thoughts here. Let me know if this was a helpful resource and if there are any topics of interest that you would like me to create a livebinder with. Enjoy!

This video provides a preview to the Starabella series. Starabella is a series of books for children between the preschool years and second grade. It is a series about autism and acceptance. This is a great addition to your library as you search to explain Autism Spectrum Disorders to your child or teach her about accepting others who may be different. Also, these series are based on the life of a young girl growing up with autism who used music to overcome her anxieties and fears. The series was created by the family involved in caring for this girl who is now a successful women. I’m looking forward to reading these myself and adding them to our classroom library!

If you would like to know more about the family who put these series together here is a link to aid you in your quest.Meet the Fialco family.

How do children view race? In this video, children answer questions about pictures of children of different colors, revealing their biases. It is so important to speak to our children about human differences and to explain that in the end we are all equal and very much alike. Many times, we choose to ignore the topic or figure that our children know better than to be biased. Essentially, ignoring this topic and choosing not to speak about it leads to our children being taught what to think by someone else. Society and all of the sometimes hidden, sometimes obvious signs of race bias can lead our children to mimic ideas we may not agree with. It is of great value that we actively teach our children the values we expect them to portray and the ideals we want them to mimic.

I have included here the link to an informative resource; a pdf about effective communication between parents and teachers. Here you will find information on the following topics:

The importance of parental involvement

National standards for parent/family involvement programs

Barriers to parental involvement

Communication in the parent-teacher relationship

Interpersonal skills tips

IEPs- what they are and how they work

I found this document to have very important information that could be helpful in understanding the parent-teacher relationship. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions. Know that I want to understand your point of view too. If you do not agree with something or have a different idea about how something works, I want to understand it. Let’s communicate!

As a high school student, I often dreaded the idea of having to write research papers. I found them boring and wordy. It wasn’t until I entered college and was forced to practice, and later became a teacher for students with disabilities that I realized the importance of staying informed and up-to-date with information that could help us make more educated decisions and understand essential topics better. I love finding science-based and research-based data. This information is factual information that could help society make better conclusions and assessments for interventions and decision-making.

What role does family play in student achievement? A very important one! I have included this link unto our website because I find it quite valuable to understand the variables that could play a role in children academic, social and emotional success.

This website provides analysed data regarding family research and the impact that family has on society. I find this to be very important information to share, as the values that we hold as a family help our little ones grow up with values of their own. This website also provides access to an extensive library of findings and scholarly articles and journals to help you stay up to date with the research.

Here I have included some research briefs to help you get started with your search for information. Simply click the links to read the files posted. Feel free to leave comments and ask questions. Begin your research quest and find more about the impact your family has on your child.

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So how exactly do we advocate?

This link provides excellent information about how to advocate for your child. And just in case you may be wondering, it also has information about what advocating even means and the steps necessary to get started. Additionally, this link takes you directly to sign up for the the Special Ed Advocate newsletter. This online newsletter is filled with information on topics of advocacy and special education with many of their articles addressed toward parents. Through it you may learn about helpful books, articles, seminars and training, as well as new cases.

You can sign up using an email address but if you’re not interested in receiving the weekly newsletter, they also have archives of every issue since 1998. This is a great way to get started. Read up on advocacy issues affecting the educational system and become your child’s most powerful advocate!

According to dictionary.com, advocacy is “the act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending”. In our case, we are advocating for your child. In the years to come you will learn many ways in which you can become an active influence in your child’s life and academic endeavors. I truly believe that the first step toward that is through advocating for your child. Ultimately you are an expert in your child. You, better than anyone, know his skills, abilities, strengths and needs. This knowledge will become an excellent conduct to leading your child to success and to challenge him in a way that will bring him closer to the goals you and those in his team have prepared for him.

Parent to Parent of Miami, Inc. is an organization created and guided by parents like you. The idea was to aid families of students with disabilities with the process of obtaining services needed and understanding the educational system which can be very confusing at times. More than 25 years later, parents all over the county are still receiving the information they need to become their child’s number one advocate. Their website contains a great deal of information including resources, workshops, training and motivational stories about other families and how they learned to advocate for their children.

Get acquainted with their website and read up on some of the free information they have available and you will feel better equipped to advocate for your child!

“Communicate unto the other person that which you would want him to communicate unto you if your positions were reversed.”

— Aaron Goldman

How true is this quote for me!

Whether explicitly addressed in their job description, or implicitly presumed and superimposed by other professionals and parents; there are major responsibilities special education teachers face. Of these responsibilities, I believe that a vital one is the higher demands in the parent-teacher relationship, especially for special education teachers of students in their early childhood, like me!

As the nation moves to provide more inclusive settings for students with disabilities, as well as increased interventions for students in their early childhood developmental years- like your son or daughter; it is of utmost importance for me to maintain a tie of communication with you about your child’s academic and social progress within the classroom. It is even more imperative that you become engaged in your child’s education very early on, as I know that is your goal while you read this, and that you work together with me to reinforce what your child is learning within the classroom. When parents feel capable and proficient in providing scientifically-based strategies, they ease student transitions, and experience success from the very beginning of their children’s educational journey.

Teachers and parents need to work together to provide students with disabilities, especially young children with autism, a comfortable, adequate routine and a learning-ready environment. In order for this collaboration to begin, as a special education teacher, I need to take the initiative of providing you with supportive resources and strategies. Strategies may include behavioral techniques, communication tactics, and teaching strategies to help students capture what has been taught by the teacher. When used in conjunction with classroom strategies, these methods and resources should allow the students to be successful in and out of the classroom and across other adults. The idea should be to allow for the generalization of new and old skills taught to children with autism and other disabilities.

Although I am not yet a parent, as the daughter of a very dedicated and involved couple, I understand the importance of parent-teacher communication from my experience as a child and a student. It is my honest desire to communicate unto you all of my knowledge and strategies through this site so that we can better collaborate and enhance your child’s abilities! As a lover of learning, I am constantly seeking to understand better, to know more, to share constantly. As a special education teacher, I am a great believer that this collaboration and commitment starts with me. This is the purpose of Preschool Brains. May the posts you find here serve you as an informative source and as a fresh start for our journey together.